MOSES LAKE — The Big Bend Community College Vikings Men’s basketball team hosted a crossover tournament over the weekend of Dec. 13, where they faced Southwestern Oregon, Skagit Valley and Centralia. While the Vikings went 1-2 overall,  

“I think it was a really good weekend,” said Vikings head coach Jason Hopkins. “Everybody says it’s the strongest crossover that they can remember. We had a No. 1, No. 2 and No. 7 in the building.” 

The first game against Southwestern on Friday was a highly competitive matchup and started with the Vikings in the lead, with the score ending at 32-25 at the end of the first half. Southwestern would gain the upper hand in the second half to outscore BBCC by 13 and end the game 67-73. 

“Probably should have won it if we’d been more disciplined,” said Hopkins. 

On Saturday, the Vikings played the number one team in the Northwest Athletic Conference, the Skagit Valley Fighting Cardinals. The Fighting Cardinals took a big lead over the Vikings in the first half to outscore Big Bend by 21 points. 

The Vikings would manage to keep up with Skagit in the second half, but would not overcome the point deficit and would fall 61-82. 

Big Bend’s final match of the crossover would come Sunday afternoon against Centralia, where the Vikings would take a huge lead over their opponent in the first half. The Vikings would be firing on all cylinders to end the half 43-27. 

The second-half scores would be closer as the Vikings would score only 35 while Centralia would put up 40. This would not be enough to close the gap created in the first half and the Vikings would end the crossover with a victory. 

“We feel good about the progress that we made on the weekend and where we’re headed,” said Hopkins. 

Following the weekend’s results, Skagit still sits as the number one team in the league, with Southwestern falling to third and Centralia falling to eighth. 

After facing these three teams, the Vikings coach said it is evident that this team is capable of competing with the top teams in the NWAC. BBCC has had a difficult schedule to start off the season, where every team they’ve faced except for two are in the top ten of the league. 

“We feel like it’s prepared us, but as we go in and play some of the teams that have maybe the best shot at winning the championship this year, we feel like we match up with them quite well,” said Hopkins.  

This difficult start to the season has also helped increase the cohesiveness of the team as they head into their conference matches following the winter break. The coach said this has been beneficial as the team only had one starter return and three total players returning from last year’s team. 

“Being able to get that cohesiveness and then having young players be able to step up and develop,” he said. “We dealt with quite a few injuries during this non-conference schedule and so having different guys step up and play different roles as we fought through some things, all of that is positive to our team development and coordination.” 

The Vikings players will be home for winter break, which gives the team some time to rest up before getting back on the court in January. Hopkins said once they get back together, they’ll have one tune-up game before getting into the league schedule. 

During this time, he said the Vikings will focus on tightening up some things on defense and make more progress on offense. 

“We’ve made some pretty big jumps there, but I’m a defense-first guys, and so we need to get a couple of those things ironed out,” said Hopkins. 

The coach said he is feeling confident in how the Vikings are looking as they head into the next part of the season and make a push to make the team’s first playoff appearance in about a decade.  

“We feel good about being able to break that drought, but we’ll take it one game at a time,” he said. “We feel really good about lining up and matching up against the competition that we’re going to face, but we’ve got to stay healthy and we’ve got to make sure that we continue to progress and improve.” 

The Vikings will host Elite Prep Post Grad on Jan. 3 at 2 p.m. and then head on the road Jan. 7 to play Wenatchee Valley at 5 p.m. 

BOX SCORES:  

GAME ONE:  

BBCC: 32-35: 67
SWOR: 25-48: 73 

GAME TWO:  

BBCC: 25-36: 61
SKGT: 46-36: 82 

GAME THREE:  

BBCC: 43-35: 78
CNTR: 27-40: 67 

    Big Bend’s Sugar Eaton makes his way across the court after gaining possession of the ball. The Vikings get to spend two weeks on break before returning to the court for league play.
  

    Ori Mizrahi from BBCC dribbles the ball along the side of the court waiting for an opening to pass to a teammate or make a move on the basket.
  

    The Vikings sideline erupts in cheers following a play during the Big Bend Crossover last weekend.
  

    BBCC’s Jakari Singleton shoots unopposed for three during the Big Bend Crossover.